norton disk utilities help!

[kik]

I need to keep my drive on my protools III PCI system drives defragmented , I have heard that norton disk utilities III is not good for mac os 8.5 , but I have run this drive as low as Os 8, wich this version of disk utilities is fine for defragmenting . My question is , does the out board protools drive use mac os , or just using dae , in retrospect will norton disk utillities for os 8.0 hurt to defragment my protools III drive for dae 5.0?Which is running on my mac with 8.6 , I was thinking that the drive is not using the o.s , but just using dae and being compatable with the o.s? , any help would be appretiated.
thanks
kik

[denbee]

Can you simply erase the drive? That works well. If you need to back up data, how about saving it to another drive, erasing the data drive and restoring it?

PS Is there a reason you are not running OS 9?

[kik]

well erasing the drive could be a option , but it doesn't get rid of the undefragmented data does it , I hear that traces of the data still remain on the drive until re-written ? I could be totally wrong ?
My main reason for staying with 8.6 , is that its stayble , I haven't seen anyprobs occured and its free. I don't have to go and buy another O.s Unles someone wants to give me a copy of 9 .

[jeffro]

Techically you are correct - Erasing or Initializing the drive doesn't get rid of the data. It does however wipe the directory so the whole drive is available for the computer to write to.